Robert Porter, who is based in the Queen Alexandra hospital outside Portsmouth and works with scientists from Portsmouth University, estimated that the infection had a mortality rate higher than breast cancer.

However, help may be at hand for sufferers of the condition.

If I went to the health commissioners and said I had a treatment for leukaemia, say, that cured people 94 per cent of the time and cost £85, they would bite my hand off

If other micro-organisms are introduced into the bowel, the infection appears to subside.

"Clostridium difficile is a disease people still underestimate," Dr Porter told The Times.

"It has a huge impact. An individual with the disease has no ability to know when they will open their bowels and is often unable to leave their house. It is difficult to pin deaths directly to the disease because patients often die of other conditions already present, but it greatly exacerbates illness."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 10 per cent of over-65s die within a month of diagnosis.

Private clinics already offer treatments and at some hospitals the procedure, which involves ingesting about 50ml of faeces, has become widespread.

Dr Porter conceded that some may find his solution a little hard to stomach.

"If I went to the health commissioners and said I had a treatment for leukaemia, say, that cured people 94 per cent of the time and cost £85, they would bite my hand off," he said.

But when he explains about his cure for Clostridium difficile, "people say, 'You want to do what?'"